


Well done, good and faithful servant

by NeasieB



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, she doesn't really look like a Puritan to me, she was only on screen for a minute or so but I was fascinated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:34:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26877514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeasieB/pseuds/NeasieB
Summary: “Annie ghosted here for a hundred year or more”. But why did she stay? And why did she eventually go?
Relationships: Mary/Annie (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 49





	Well done, good and faithful servant

Anne Kidby, known to all as Annie, was distinctly annoyed when the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was dirty, heathen-looking man dressed in fur and well-worn leather, with unkempt hair. The second thing she saw was a woman dressed as a servant like herself, but in a godless blue bodice and yellow sleeves. Everyone knew that yellow was the colour of a wanton. Worse, the woman looked as if she had been crawling up the chimney, covered as she was in soot and smelling of the fire. The chimney! That reminded her. It had been blocked and she had meant to ask one of the men to clear it, but instead had fallen asleep. This was most unlike her. Annie was a very superior sort of servant – a nursery maid at Button House. Her uniform was always correct, her cap straight, her apron clean and ironed. She was always conscientious in carry out her duties. And now she had awoken to find these two godless, dirty, untidy strangers in her nice, clean room. Of course, it wasn't her room. It was Master Michael and Miss Elizabeth's nursery, and as the nursery maid she slept with them. It was a very nice room, as befitted the children of the master and mistress, but it wasn't hers. 

Where were the children? The strangers looked at her, sympathy in their eyes. “How you feel?” asked the man. “Well, I think” she replied. And then, confused, “Who are you? How did you get in here?” She jumped to her feet. Again the two strangers looked kindly at her. “Sit”, said the man. “It mights be fors the bests” added the woman, putting a gentle hand on her arm. Confused, Annie sat back down. “You remembers the chimbley?” said the woman. “Blocked” added the man. “Gas come, can't breathe. Children die too”. The only part of this Annie took in initially was “Children die”. She began to sob, rocking herself backwards and forwards in her chair. Although a servant, she had loved and cared for those children since their births. How could they be dead so suddenly? The strangers knelt beside her, patting her arms ineffectually in an attempt to comfort her. 

Eventually the first storm of grief subsided enough for her to ask another question “What do you mean – the children died TOO?”

***

After the first shock, Annie didn't mind being a ghost too much. She would have much preferred to have been reunited with her parents and sister in Heaven, as she'd always believed would happen, but she felt that she deserved to remain earthbound to atone for the childrens' deaths. If only she had got the blocked chimney cleared before the fumes from the fire had spread into the room and poisoned them as they slept. In vain did the savage-looking man, who she now knew to be called Robin, tell her she was not to blame. The soot-covered woman, who was called Mary, told her that she and Robin had watched her die. Annie had not fallen asleep, but had been overcome by the fumes. She would not have been able to save the children or herself. But Annie still felt responsible. The children had not stayed as ghosts. Mary said she had seen their souls move on, as could be expected of innocents. 

As it turned out, Mary and Robin were not her only companions in this unexpected new afterlife. After two days she met a head. The head was on a table on its own, but seemed to regard the absence of its body with perfect equanimity. Annie screamed and the head said “Oh, hello. You must be the new one then. Typical of the others not to introduce us. Mind you, I like to stay out of the way for the first day or two when someone new arrives. My appearance can be a bit disconcerting, you know”. In fact, once she had got over the shock of talking to a severed head, he turned out to be a delightful companion – intelligent and witty, with a first class dry sense of humour, although constantly preoccupied with locating his missing body, which had a tendency to wander off on its own. Making friends with Humphrey was one of her first, best compensations for her early death. 

She also became fast friends with Mary. Both had their experiences as servants to bring them together. 

“You can't be a reals Puritan with a collars likes that” said Mary one day. She waved a hand at Annie's large, pristine white collar, embellished with whitework and pulled threadwork. Annie laughed. “I was raised one” she said. “And I do believe. Or at least I did until I died, and now I don't know what to think. But yes, I confess the sin of love of good clothing so I embroidered my collar. I know it is not fitting for either a servant or a godfearing woman, but is it really a sin to use the skill God gave me in such a way?”. 

“I watched you do it” said Mary. “Hours and hours it took you, all that white threads on white cloths, by candlelights. I likes spinnings myself. I don'ts holds with those modern wheels though. I had a lovely spindles my husband mades for me. Still, can't do it now.”.

“Spinning? Oh I always saw that as a chore. Miles and miles of yarn. It felt never ending. And then the plying, and the skeining, and the knitting of it.” 

“I didn't like the knittings. I can't do numbers. Even with the knitting songs the numbers was too hard for me”.

“I should be glad never to have to spin or knit again.”

“Well, I thinks you will have your wish now, Annie.”

***

Time passed. The west wing nursery where Annie and the children died was shut up and forgotten. No one wanted to use a room where such a terrible thing had happened, and after a generation or two no one could remember why the room was shut up, just that it always was. Subsequent generations made a new nursery in the east wing. Annie liked to spend time there. She had always loved little children and discovered that if she concentrated very hard she could rock a cradle or smooth a crib blanket. It seemed that the little ones could see her up until about the age of 2, and that was a comfort to her. But she also liked to spend time in the west wing nursery where she had died, remembering the little charges she still felt she had failed. The room was locked, but locks and walls were no impediment to her now. 

She never went down to the cellar where Mary told her the ghosts of plague victims were. The nurseries were her place.

***

More time passed. New ghosts arrived. Some like the 19th century soldier who liked to skate on the lake in winter, and the black dog who was said to appear to herald a death in the family (but in fact usually just wanted Robin to play Fetch with him with Humphrey's head), stayed only for a few decades before moving onto whatever came next - being “sucked off” as ghost parlance had it. Some stayed. These included Kitty, a relentlessly cheerful Georgian noblewoman who was scarcely more than a child herself; and Thomas, a melodramatic Romantic-era poet who had been visiting the house when he was unexpectedly killed in a duel. Annie and the other ghosts watched all the newcomers die. They didn't like it but felt it was their duty, and always tried to offer the newly-dead comfort in the first confusing hours and days afterwards. 

After around 200 years, the current owner of Button House died. Anne couldn't remember how many generations he was from her own time. His widow moved permanently to their London house, and their eldest son and his young pregnant wife moved back to the ancestral home. Exploring, they found the locked old nursery in the west wing. “This is nicer than the current nursery”, they said, and had their staff clean and redecorate it. Annie was delighted, and even more so when the new baby boy arrived. It was always joyous when an heir was born to secure the ownership of the house for another generation. Master George had his own nurse and a nursery maid, of course, but Annie loved to spend time in her old room, rocking the cradle and smoothing the blankets as she had in life. 

***

It was a cold, dark afternoon in early winter when Annie realised that the chimney was blocked again. Annie and Mary were having a peaceful afternoon sitting in the nursery cooing over the baby, as they often liked to do. It was the nurse's half day so the nursery maid, Rose, was alone, darning stockings, with Master George asleep in his crib. Annie liked Rose. Although separated by centuries, Annie saw how she loved and cared for the baby in her charge, and felt she was like the daughter she never had. 

Mary remarked that the fire wasn't drawing properly “And I knows about fires”, she added. When Annie looked she could see Mary was right. She was seized by an overwhelming feeling of dread. The pattern of the fire and the soot gave her a sudden vivid memory of her own Death Day. No, no, this couldn't be happening again. Please no! She couldn't bear to see the same terrible story play out again, see another set of parents suffer as the master and mistress had suffered in her time. It would be too cruel. She had to try to stop it. But how? 

Annie cast round desperately for something she could do. She could see Mary repeatedly stepping through Rose, trying to alert her with the smell of burning that always accompanied her. This was brave of her – Annie knew that walking through the living always made Mary very nauseous. There had to be something she could do. She was a nursery maid – her purpose was to care for and protect children. Using all her strength, Annie rocked the cradle, once, then again, then repeatedly. The baby woke up and began to cry. Rose looked up. “There must be a strong wind to come down the chimney and make the cradle rock like that” she murmured. She put her darning aside, got up out of her chair and came over to the fire. Annie continued to rock the cradle as hard as she could. Rose looked at the fire, then frowned. She cast her hand above it, then peered up the chimney and shook her head. Then she ran out of the room shouting “Mistress, mistress, I think the nursery chimney is blocked. I have heard such can smother small children as they sleep. May we sleep in the east wing nursery for tonight, until John can clear it in the morning?”

***

All was quiet in the house. The east wing nursery had been hastily aired and dusted, and the nurse, Rose, and baby George had moved into it for the night. The west wing nursery was deserted now, the fire put out, and dustsheets covering the furniture against the expected mess of sweeping the chimney the next morning. 

Annie and Mary passed through the closed door and looked around approvingly. Mary beamed. “I thinks we did it” she said, sounding satisfied. Annie drained by the effort she had put in, but serene, smiled too. “Yes,” she said “I think we did”. All at once Annie saw herself bathed in a bright light. She heard Miss Elizabeth's characteristic giggle and Master Michael call “Annie, Annie! Come and look at this”. How could they still have children's voices after so long? But she herself had not aged either. 

The last thing she heard before she followed the children into the light was Mary saying “Annie's been and got sucked off. Lucky cow”.

**Author's Note:**

> The skating soldier and black dog ghosts who don't stay are fairly local to where I live. I thought they might appreciate secondment to Button House and a change of scene for a century or so.


End file.
